COVID-19 has changed our perspective on cleanliness, personal interaction, and our environment generally. It makes humans sensitive to their health compared to some years ago due to how deadly it could be if someone got infected.
Thankfully, regular contract cleaning, touch-point cleaning, and regulated hand sanitising mitigate coronavirus spread. It also ensures a workspace is cleaned is still crucial even when legal restrictions are lifted and lockdown ends. This infographic by gccfm.com provides an overview of what is to be done should there be a COVID case at the workplace.
How does the post-pandemic workplace operate and what should its environment look like? However, you must keep things in check, starting from paperwork to hiring anti-COVID fogging services. In this article, we assess how office managers can look after their staff by following the COVID-19 case protocol.
Prevention
Managers should put out informative notes around the workplace premises to guide customers or employees accessing the premises. It further serves as a precautional reminder to everyone regarding COVID awareness.
Additionally, when the government issues the guidelines to follow, managers must ensure adherence to the guidelines by employees, contractors and customers since anyone is a possible carrier.
By frequently placing these information notes across various parts of the office or shared building co-working areas, this will help provide the message to everyone that each individual has a role to play in minimizing the risk of spreading COVID around the workplace and to convey the importance of this message across, effective communication is required.
Face-Covering Regulations
Except for the medically exempted, employees must cover their faces using recommended nose masks and face shields to curb the virus. It also serves as a good health practice for customers coming into the business premises.
Managers can encourage employees to help the situation by instructing customers to use their facemask.
Employees that forget their face mask should not be allowed into the business premises. Alternatively, the company should provide abundant and healthy face masks for such employees.
Social Distancing Implementation
Managers can ensure that employees maintain social distancing at least 1.5m to 2m. In this manner, an employee will curb contact or avoid body touches with one another in the business premises.
Social distancing is imperative and must be implemented to mitigate the spread of COVID-19 in the organization. Office managers can place stickers or tape around the office areas to showcase that a strict one-way system is in place and people must abide by this protocol.
Hand Sanitising Centres
Managers should establish hand sanitizing centers within the business premises, especially at the entrances, to hand-sanitize employees before they access the building.
It also helps when employees exit the building, it keeps them from contracting the virus outside and spreading it inside the premises. It is essential that everyone within the work building abides by workplace hygiene protocol and regularly using hand sanitisers with at least 70% alcohol content to make it very difficult for the virus to thrive.
It might sound like a simple thing to do but it is quite still surprising that people do not always regularly wash their hands, particularly after they have been to the washroom.
Regular Cleaning
Regular cleaning should be applied to frequently touched areas such as door handles and light switches. Managers must ensure that no area is left uncleaned, except it is OK for employees to become infected, not part of the plan.
Note that it is not every cleaning product that eliminates coronavirus. Recommended cleaning products are labelled EN14476 and are proven to be effective at killing the virus. Therefore, each product label purchased must be carefully inspected closely.
Tracing and Tracking Implementation
A manager should ensure that staff accessing the company is scanned by their QR code. If a COVID case is recorded, the employee is tracked and traced easily.
However, those that came in contact with a carrier will also be advised to isolate themselves for some days till a confirmation has been made about the status of their health.
Contacting a Fogging Service Provider
Finding a reliable fogging service is not so difficult, yet challenging. Why? COVID-19 is a delicate problem that businesses must approach carefully to avoid compromising business health.
Managers must ensure the environment is set up for treatment before hiring an effective fogging service provider. The preparation involves removing all equipment and items that could block access to areas where fogging is applied.
Fogging works by charging mist particles, which create an antimicrobial shield on surfaces and protects them from COVID-19. The particles are charged electrostatically and it’s one of the most effective ways of eradicating COVID in the workplace. Did you know that in just 1 hour, 3,500 square feet can be treated?
Maintenance
After fogging, it does not end there! Managers must improve employee working health by ensuring regular fogging and fogging can last for 30 days from the initial treatment. When the initial treatment has been applied, nobody must enter the building premises within 2 hours once conducted to ensure that the best possible outcome and results of the fogging treatment can work and be prolonged.
Meanwhile, regardless of whether a case was confirmed or not, it is advisable to fog the business premises monthly. You must report to the appropriate quarters if you believe the confirmed case has come from occupational exposure.
COVID CASE: The Need for Managers’ Quick Response
Managers must be proactive when a case is confirmed but must not shut down the business. To prevent the spread of the virus when a case has been confirmed within the business premises, managers should question the situation.
Moreover, managers must make attempts to identify the parties that the infected persons made physical contact. Of course, both parties must self-isolate until a detailed confirmation has been made that both parties are negative to COVID-19.
Managers should act faster since the longer the virus spreads like wildfire. Any confirmed case should be removed from the premises immediately. Otherwise, the entire company might have to shut down due to the unmanageable number of COVID cases.
Ultimately, managers can direct people with who have contracted COVID to use their vehicle home to self-isolate. Public transportation is not recommended since it exposes public transit users to the virus.
